Happy Holidays

I slowly scaled the winding stone stairway leading up to my tower, halting next to one of the small square openings in the wall, more like an arrow slot than a real window.

Looking outside, the morning greeted me with a hail of half-frozen rain. Right now I was actually supposed to be sitting in my first class of the day, Basic Battle Crafts. Even though the Christmas holidays would start in two days, I was sure that Ms. Summer wouldn’t let us do some self-study (which was basically code for free time) and instead would continue with her curriculum. But the class would have lasted until noon, and thoughts of Aiden occupied my mind.

Maybe it had been a mistake to just let him leave like that yesterday afternoon? I couldn’t even explain what had stopped me from confronting him right there and then.

I never really thought about what kind of supernatural Aiden was. Not a witch and probably not a normal shapeshifter, as he lacked their usual ticks. It hadn’t really mattered to me - Aiden would always be Aiden.

But now I wondered. He seemed to have dropped the simian shapeshifter yesterday with simply a thought.

Maybe that’s why all the other students were so afraid of him? Maybe they had an idea about what kind of being Aiden really was?

I found, that more than what he was, I was worried about if he would still be there.

The first time I met Aiden had been two weeks after I’d discovered the tower room.

On that afternoon I had entered the room, which I already thought of as my room at that point, and stopped dead when I spotted an unknown boy sprawled across the old yellow couch. Aiden had looked a lot rougher back then than he did now; his cheekbones were more prominent and his eyes sunken, surrounded by dark circles. His hair was an unruly mess, covering half his features.

I was startled to say the least.

My first instinct had been to leave the rather unstable looking boy alone and come back later, hoping he’d be gone by then. But before I could walk away I caught a whiff of his nightmare. It turned my stomach. Even though I didn’t know him, I just didn’t have it in me to leave anyone in a state like that. So I gobbled the nightmare up, until not even a trace was left, and replaced it with dreams so sweet they almost gave me a toothache.

I would never forget Aiden’s expression after he woke up.

Since then he stuck around. The more time we spend together in the small tower room, the closer we got, until I considered him a friend … or a bit more.

Now I feared he wouldn’t be there when I opened the heavy oak door. Aiden was almost as much a part of the room as the musty couch he always slept on - without him, there would be something missing.

I should have just talked to him yesterday.

Clenching my teeth I opened the door and felt a rush of relief when Aiden’s green eyes met mine - which was quickly followed by a rush of hot embarrassment as I took the rest of him in.

Instead of lying on his couch he was standing next to it, in the middle of unbuttoning his wet shirt. Little glittering droplets of water collected on his collarbone, following the slight indentions between his pecks, and running slowly lower and lower across that expanse of golden skin ... my eyes followed their path as if hypnotized.

“Morning.”

My gaze snapped up to Aiden’s face to see him smile his usual, small smile at me - the corners of his full mouth were barely crooked, but his eyes were twinkling in amusement.

My throat felt dry.

“Morning,” I rasped and heard the door close behind me.

A drop fell from a strand of his bronze hair, running down the side of his nose to finally land on his pierced bottom lip.

Don’t look, don’t look. Dear God.

“What ...” I cleared my throat. “Why are you all wet?” I asked, only to blush again.

He shrugged and continued to unbutton his shirt. “Couldn’t find my jacket this morning. The rain surprised me.”

I was suddenly quite aware of the pink, puffy monstrosity I myself was wearing. My mom thought it was absolutely cute and had given it to me as a sort of gag gift, and though on that day I vowed to never wear it it was sadly also the warmest jacket I owned.

Right now I wished I had decided to freeze instead of putting it on in the morning. I probably looked like a strawberry flavored marshmallow.

“No jacket?” I repeated, feeling the lack of blood in my brain.

“That sucks, I guess ...”

“Mags?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t you have class?”

“Yeah.”

His fingers deftly wrestled the last button open and the shirt fell from his shoulders, revealing the grey and black tattoos snaking up his sculpted arms.

“What are you doing here, then?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” I mumbled.

He smiled again.

God only knows how long my stupor would have lasted for, if I hadn’t noticed the slight shiver that rippled across his wet skin.

Thoughts of trailing the small drops with my fingers vanished in an instant as I realized he must be freezing.

Of course he is, that’s ice water and it’s December.

Without really thinking about it, I spurred into action, crossing the room and grabbing the aqua blue blanket I bought for him a few months ago from the arm of the couch.

“Sit down.”

He raised an eyebrow at me but settled onto his couch without protest. Quickly I wrapped the blanket around his naked upper body, refusing to dwell on it any longer and kinda relieved that temptation would be hidden from sight. Once he was tightly bundled up I grabbed one of the kitchen towels I kept on hand, in case I made a mess while brewing a potion. Making sure it was clean I stepped in front of Aiden and used it to gently press the moisture from his hair. Even though I was standing and he was sitting, his head was barely lower than my own.

“Mags?”

“Yes?” I answered, carefully squeezing the silky strands with the towel, and trying to forget that he was practically half-naked under that fluffy, blue blanket.

“I’m sorry about yesterday.”

I halted and looked into his eyes. Startlingly green, they bored into mine. I realized how close our faces were to each other, and felt my breath hitch a little.

“What happened?” I whispered.

“I let my temper get away with me.”

It wasn’t really an answer. I swallowed. “Did you want him to faint?”

Silence stretched between us. I felt him studying me, assessing my reaction.

“Yes,” he finally answered, his voice cold. “Does this bother you, Mags?”

“Aiden, I just want to understand …” Realizing where I was going with this, I quickly shut my mouth. Nervously I licked my lips.

Aiden’s gaze snagged on the little motion, his eyes turning to a deeper shade.

I suddenly realized my hands were still framing his face, barely holding the towel in my prickling fingers.

His eyes traveled back to mine, glinting with an unfamiliar hunger. My heart made a strange little hop in my chest, before beating at double its usual speed.

One of his tattooed hands freed itself from the blanket, clutching the seam of my pink marshmallow jacket, and slowly drew me closer.

A loud bang resounded through the room from behind me, making me almost jump out of my skin.

Whirling around I spotted Colin stumbling into the room, the heavy door he’d thrown open slowly falling close again.

I ripped my hands away from Aiden’s face as if I’d been caught with them in the cookie jar. The towel had already fallen from my numb fingers.

Aiden slowly let go of my jacket.

Colin straightened and relief washed over his face as soon as he spotted me. “Thank god you’re here! I know I said I’d come by at noon but I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

“Of course not,” Aiden commented dryly.

Colin’s blisters had gotten worse overnight. Instead of only affecting his neck they started to encroach on his face, spreading over his cheeks.

Before I could say anything, he started to restlessly pace and babble: “I was researching some spells for poison testing, but boy are they complicated, nothing we’d be able to do yet. So I switched to human methods and there are lots! But then I figured it would be best to discover who gave the cookies to me in the first place, so I read up on that, and listen to this: we can bake a batch of the exact same cookies - without poison of course and I’m sure we’ll find a recipe online - then we give them to our suspects and the one who refuses to eat them is probably guilty.”

He paused and grinned at me, seeming quite proud of his idea, but underneath it was a current of desperation. It must have freaked him out more than he let on, not knowing what was going on or who was responsible.

So I didn’t point out all the flaws in his logic - we didn’t even have a suspect pool yet, and what if someone refused because they simply didn’t like sweets or were on a diet? Instead I said: “I already know who did it, and what poison was used.”

That stopped him short. He didn’t even flinch when Aiden stood up, shedding the blanket and revealing his undressed state.

The silence didn’t last long. “What? How? Who?”

I rummaged through my backpack and took out a corked little flask, something I had brewed up yesterday under the watchful eye of my grandmother. The thick brew sloshing around inside looked unappetizing, a strange orange-brown color. “First of all, drink this. It will counter the effects somewhat and help with the pain.”

“Who poisoned me?” he asked, ignoring the little flask. “And for fuck’s sake, why?”

“I don’t know why, but you can ask the person yourself,” I said, somehow not wanting to reveal my relation to the culprit yet. “Now, drink this.”

I walked towards him and pressed the bottle into his clenched hand. Slowly he closed his fingers around it, staring at me suspiciously. “How did you manage to find out so quickly?”

“I’ll explain in a minute,” I answered, racking my brain about where I would find Jo this time of morning. If I remembered correctly, she should be having herbalism.

“Explain it now,” Colin seethed, hostility radiating from him in waves. The knuckles of the hand clutching the small potion had turned white.

It was the first time I realized that he was a good head taller than my rather petite stature. Swallowing I took a small step back, wanting some distance between us.

“It’s better that the person explains herself.”

“Oh yeah?” He took a step closer, following me, looming over me. “Why?”

I leaned back and my shoulders bumped into a warm wall.

Looking up I spotted Aiden, watching Colin with glowing eyes.

Anger and a kind of wariness fighting in his expression, Colin glared right back, gritting his teeth. “Fine! Whatever. Let me talk to the bastard then.”

This had turned sour a lot more quickly than I expected. I didn’t really think that whatever reason Jo could offer as explanation for her little stunt would calm him down.

On the other hand, I couldn’t really fault Colin for being pissed off.

“I think she’s at the greenhouse.” I told no-one in particular, searching my backpack for the school keys. “Does someone know the combination?”

“She?” Colin repeated, momentarily loosing some steam.

“You need the key for the south building, combination 2142,” Aiden told me, while pulling a new, dry shirt over his head. Not part of the school uniform, long-sleeved and grey cotton, it stretched across his shoulders and chest.

“Since when did you have clothes stashed around here?”

Before he could answer, Colin stepped into my field of vision, looking like he was about to pop a vein. “Could we maybe postpone whatever hanky-panky you’re up to, and go find the fucking poisoner already?”

Hanky-panky? I didn’t realize people actually used that phrase.

My fingers closed around something cold and metallic and triumphant I fished the key ring out of my overstuffed, black backpack. Choosing the key with the citrin stone inlay, I walked toward the door, aware of the boys following me.

Sticking the key into the lock, I fed a bit of my magic to the door, letting it soak into the wood. Satisfied, I turned the key two times in the right direction, one turn left, another four times right, and finally two turns in the left direction again.

The door clicked. Keeping the key in the lock, I turned the handle and opened the door.

Instead of the winding stone staircase leading down, I looked into a big room, the walls and the ceiling consisting of glass panels through which the cloudy sky was visible. A wall of hot, moist air, smelling of wet earth and plants, slammed into me. I immediately started sweating in my thick jacket.

Some students were milling around, tending the plants or chatting with each other, but no teacher was present. Mr. Dufflore had apparently decided to go the way of least resistance a lot of teachers (who weren’t Ms. Summer) preferred in the pre-holiday days: Unsupervised self-study.

I spotted Jo in the corner of the room, carefully trimming a small plant heavy with white berries.

Loosening the key, I stuffed it into my pocket, before entering the room, holding the door open for the two boys.

On my own I hadn’t garnered much attention, but as soon as Colin stepped through, a lot of the girls raised their head, smiling and starting to whisper. I realized that Colin had donned one of those huge trendy shawls, to hide the blisters on his neck and face. Relieved I noticed that his hand loosely held the empty flask with the potion I’d given him - which meant he’d taken it at last. He smiled back at the girls, even winking at one lucky candidate, who rolled her eyes, but giggled while doing it. Two of the girls stood up, clearly intending to talk to him - and then Aiden stepped through, closing the door, which from this side consisted of steel and glass, behind him.

The girl’s eyes widened and they plopped back down at exactly the same time. The whispering increased in volume, but stopped dead as Aiden let his gaze wander through the room.

Jo, having noticed the commotion, was standing up, plucking the thick gardening gloves from her hands while walking toward us.

Colin, still preoccupied with his groupies, only noticed her when she stopped directly in front of him.

“Let’s take this somewhere more private,” she told him, her voice grave.

“Huh?” was all he managed in response, as Jo was already walking past him, out the door we’d just come through.

“I guess we’re going somewhere more private,” I repeated, trying to sound cheerful.

“That’s Josephine Rotfuss, that hot Clairvoyant chick,” Colin felt the need to tell me, appearing lost.

“Actually, her gift is farsightedness, not clairvoyance.”

“She’s the one who poisoned me?” he gasped, finally catching on. “Why? I’ve barely talked to her! Wait - is that the reason?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Aiden shake his head in disbelief.

“You can ask her yourself.” I tried to hustle him through the door, without causing more of a commotion than our simple appearance in the room had already caused. Colin followed along willingly enough, apparently still confused.

From the greenroom we stepped into a corridor that was actually more balcony than hallway. A row of curved archways opened the walls on both sides up, letting in a freezing breeze carrying that disgusting rain-slosh. I tried to keep my gaze averted from the multiple story drop clearly visible through the arches. The greenhouse behind us wasn’t on ground level, but quite a few stories above it, towering precariously on a corner of the south building.

Jo stood at the other end of the corridor, in front of a door leading into one of the south towers, this one looking like it came straight out of an Arabian Nights fantasy - white, with evenly spaced windows decorated with geometrical lattice-work. Crowning the minaret was a golden, onion-shaped roof, currently being pelted by the rain.

Aiden stepped up beside me, sheltering me from the stinging wind and rain with his body. Colin followed behind us, as we briskly marched toward Jo and her beautiful tower. Once we reached her, she turned around and opened the small door in the side of the tower, stepping into the winding stairwell.

No one spoke and a strange tension settled over our small group, as we ascended the stairs, Aiden the only one seeming unaffected, his movements speaking of his usual graze.

Finally reaching a small room branching off from the tower - and probably not part off the original layout - we entered something that could have well been the private study of a rich older gentlemen, with lots off natural, dark wood paneling, heavy, leather clad furniture, a stone fireplace crowned by a stuffed bear’s head and a thick oriental rug covering the floor.

Colin snapped his fingers and the dry wood inside the fireplace whooshed with sudden, orange flames. The crackle of the fire and a warm glow filled the room, but no one commented on his neat trick.

I didn’t know if I should make any attempt to break the silence. I actually didn’t really play any part in their dilemma, except for running interference and sadly being related to the culprit.

Before I could decide, Jo turned around and faced Colin. Her skin looked pale, but not the usual porcelain complexion, but an unnatural sleep-deprived one. And even though her posture was self-assured as always, her shoulders pushed back, I noticed that her hand nervously toyed with the seam of her school blazer.

“First of all, let me say, I’m sorry. I never intended for this to happen, but even if the potion had worked as I wanted it to, it was wrong to give it to you.”

She swallowed. Aiden, not part of the mini drama playing out, slouched into one of the heavy leather chairs in front of the fireplace, closing his eyes.

“I wanted to cause some skin irritations, but I made a stupid mistake and messed up the potion. That’s why it turned out like this,” Jo continued. “I’m really, really sorry. I promise, I will find a solution.”

“Before that, I would like to know why you did it in the first place,” Colin said, looking pissed off. At least he wasn’t screaming at her or shaking his fist in her face.

Jo’s hand clenched around her blazer. “You made fun of Allison, when she gave you the gloves.”

“What?”

“She knitted them herself for the past few weeks, and gave them to you as an early Christmas present. But instead of being nice about it, you made fun of her.”

Colin furrowed his brow, apparently trying to remember.

“You said you risked catching her pimples if you actually wore them,” Jo continued, a some heat coming through in her voice. I winced. “Which, by the way, is absolutely ridiculous, because her skin is like that because of puberty and in no way contagious.”

“What the hell, it was a joke,” Colin burst out. “She shouldn’t have taken it so seriously! And I did take the stupid gloves, didn’t I? It’s definitely no reason to feed me poisonous sweets!”

Jo paused for a second. “Yes, you’re right. Which is why I’m apologizing. And finding a solution.”

“Oh yeah? And what great solution would that be? Because, let me tell you, I haven’t found one yet.”

Jo and I exchanged a glance. Grandma had probably told us the same thing.

“A unicorn’s horn is able to cure all poisons,” I pitched in.

Colin scoffed, without taking his gaze off Jo. “A unicorn? Really?”

“What type?” Aiden asked from his lounge chair.

So he knew there were multiple. The African ones, that more resembled a rhino than a horse, were aggressive and deadly. The Arabian ones, fierce and wild and almost more rare than all the others. The ones attributed to the fairies, their horn more like a crown growing from their forehead, and their appearance somewhere between a horse and a stag.

“The classic European one,” I said.

“You know, glittery and white, star in almost every fairytale, have a slightly perverted fondness for virgins, the drill,” Jo felt the need to add. Apparently her time of humbleness was over.

“That’s nice and all,” Colin said. “But where are we supposed to find one? If I remember our Mythological Creature lessons correctly, they are not only rare, but also cautious and difficult to approach. And even if we did find one, how would we get its horn? I don’t think we can take one down, and I also doubt it would just gladly give up his horn for me.” He paused. “Wait, is one of you a virgin?”

Ignoring his question, I told him: “My grandmother has an acquaintances, who runs a shop selling all kind of things to the magical community. She hinted that this acquaintance probably has some unicorn horn as well.”

Even though it was actually illegal, which I didn’t think would be smart to add at the moment.

I felt Aiden’s gaze on me and had a feeling he knew that little tidbit already.

Thankfully, Colin was oblivious. “Really? Where is this mysterious acquaintance?”

“You should be aware that our grandma cautioned us about the price. She doesn’t know how much it will cost - or what might be asked in return,” Jo added.

“Let’s find out, you’ll be the one paying anyway,” Colin said, a new energy filling him, probably at the prospect of loosing the blisters. “Wait - our grandma? You’re related to each other?”

I suppressed a sigh.